GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #89: MY LINE

I have a definite line when it comes to art. I believe that anything goes . . . except if art causes someone to be hurt or killed. Snuff films are not art, and if someone actually gets hurt in the making of art, it has crossed the line. By "someone," I also include animals in there. Anything that lives, really.


I saw a movie recently that deeply troubled me. It's called AMORES PERROS, which translates loosely to "love's a bitch." There's double-meaning in the title, since there are a lot of dogs in this movie. In fact, there are some very realistic depictions of dog fights, and this is what bothers me the most.


I'm not against DEPICTING dog fights. If I did, I'd be a hell of a hypocrite, considering how many violent acts I've depicted in my own fiction. However, filming VERY REAL dog fights is, in my opinion, evil.


AMORES PERROS really blurred the line for me. When I first saw the dog fights in the movie, I could have sworn they were for real. Whenever they showed a dead dog, that dead dog looked dead for real. The corpse wasn't an effect; I could have sworn that the director had really killed a dog so he could get verisimilitude in his scenes. Let's face it, there are a lot of dead dogs in this one. If my immediate impulse was true, the director probably killed about twenty dogs to make this movie. (It's not true. He said he drugged them, as if they'd gone to the vet for an operation. A bit questionable, I think, but not evil.)


I had to stop the movie. I couldn't, in good conscience, continue watching the movie if it was for real. I did some research online, and I wasn't surprised to find that a lot of people had accused the director of animal cruelty. Some critics called him to task for showing dog fights at all, even if they were faked. I don't agree with that. (They also said that the movie didn't call for that kind of thing. It did, actually. You can't have a movie about dog fighting without depicting dogs fighting.)


However, I found some statements from the director and film crew. They insisted the scenes were fake, that the dogs wore protective gear for the shots and the rest of the realism was captured with the magic of editing.


I didn't agree with that, either. Not at first. When I looked back at those scenes, though, I started realizing that yes, that could be the truth. You don't actually see much, and the moments you do are kind of blurry. Do I believe the dogs wanted to attack each other? Yes. Do I think they actually did? Now? No. The director said he took the exact same care with the dogs that he did with filming the car accident scene. My initial reaction was not to believe him, but the more I thought about it, and the more I looked at it, I realized that he was probably right.


It's like the old story about the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. People will swear left and right that they actually saw the meat hook go into the woman's back, but that's the power of imagination and editing. It just didn't happen that way, yet people believe it did.


AMORES PERROS is a beautiful movie. It's different. It's jarring. You can't watch it and not be changed, unless you're a complete asshole, of course. I recommend it, but it's not for people weak of stomach. Nor is it for people who want storybook endings. It's advertised as the PULP FICTION of its generation. Sure enough, it's not told in a linear sequence, but that's all it has in common with the Tarantino masterpiece. It's the AMORES PERROS of its generation. Period.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #88: COMIC BOOK READER

In the wake of the new season of COMIC BOOK MEN, I feel the need to talk about my love of comic books. Since I started reviewing comic books for the Elmhurst College LEADER in 1998, I've been considered a comic book reader. To be fair, I did this long before. I loved comics when I was a kid, and I didn't stop until Marvel's incarnation of THE TRANSFORMERS ended, much to my chagrin. Years later, CJ, a friend I'd met during my senior year of high school, got me back into comics with EVIL ERNIE, PREACHER and HITMAN. Three years later, I was writing reviews for the LEADER as the first comic book reviewer EVER on staff. My time there won me an award from the Chicago TRIBUNE. (I got two, actually, but I only got one for my comic book work.)


Still, whenever I mention my love of comic books, people assume I'm talking about superheroes. This pisses me off a great deal, because not all comic books are about superheroes. In fact, I don't like superheroes. I know, that's blasphemy in this age of Marvel movies. Let me make myself clear: I love the superhero movies, but I can't stand the superhero comic books. I'm not condemning those books. It's a matter of taste. I don't like them, but I don't hate people who like them. That's your business, not mine.


I don't really read superhero comic books. The only time I do is when a writer I respect is writing them. There are a handful of great superhero stories, I think. One of them is obviously WATCHMEN. Another is THE BOYS, which is one of the greatest comic books ever written. I loved Mark Millar's take on OLD MAN LOGAN. The same goes for David Morrell's take on SAVAGE WOLVERINE. And then there's books like Brian Azzarello's WONDER WOMAN and so on and so forth.


But ultimately, those aren't the books I'm interested in, aside from THE BOYS. I think superheroes are stupid. I find it's a fucking shame that the average person isn't aware that comic books are more than some person wearing skintight underwear facing off against criminal/evil alien villains. I want PREACHER. I want TRANSMETROPOLITAN. I want 100 BULLETS. And yes, I want LOCKE & KEY. How about AMERICAN VAMPIRE? Or DICKS? Or CROSSED? Or THE FADE OUT? Or CRIMINAL or FATALE? FBP? SAGA? SEX CRIMINALS? STRAY BULLETS? TREES? How about DORK and MILK AND CHEESE? I could go on forever, but most average people, whenever they think of comic books, will think about Superman, Batman, the X-Men, Spider-Man and whoever else wears spandex tight enough to show the shape of their genitals.


I love Tommy Monaghan, one of the few guys in the old DCU who took the piss out of superheroes on a regular basis. He puked on Batman and showed how Green Lantern was a cheapskate. Or how about THE BOYS, who policed the degenerate supes?


But . . . the loyal fans of HITMAN remember very well that there was one superhero who had earned Tommy's trust: Superman. And just like that, I can appreciate certain things about the comic book superheroes.


Whenever someone brings something cool into the Stash on COMIC BOOK MEN, I can truly appreciate it. I'm wowed. I'm very interested to see how these things turn out, because they're historical documents.


But let's be honest. Superheroes should have died out long ago. Marvel manages to keep them alive, for the most part. I don't like a lot of their methods, but they have their hearts in the right place. DC, on the other hand, has driven their titles into the ground. They don't know what the fuck they're doing. If their BATMAN/SUPERMAN movie succeeds, it will only be because people were curious enough to see it. Not because it's great, though.


Some superheroes are immortal, and that's fine. Those who aren't should have been released a while ago. The Big Two work constantly to reinvent these characters, but in all honesty, I think they should just be released. If they continue with new people behind the mask, then it's the same ol' bullshit as ever. If there's a reboot, no matter how much you change it, it's still the same ol' bullshit as ever. If you let these characters die? They can serve a narrative purpose.


Reboots only serve as commercial agents. Actually killing characters off would serve stories very well. Not like I give a shit. Just give me my non-superhero books, and I'll be satisfied.


But what the fuck do I care? You guys fuck around with your superhero comics, and I'll stay over here with the other stuff. Goodnight, fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #87: A PICTURE THAT WILL ALWAYS GET TO ME

This is a hard picture for me to look at because it embodies an emotion I don't know if I can describe. It drives me to tears every time I see it. The desperate sorrow and fear is palpable, and it strikes me on a very basic human level.


I talked about masculinity last night, and when it comes right down to popular opinion, there is nothing more masculine than war, especially an older one like the Korean War, during which the picture above was taken. People--mostly older guys--bitch and moan about modern values, and they like to think back to a time "when men were men." That's a glaringly sexist comment, but never mind that for now. I'm thinking about its implications about the past. It suggests that there was a time when men were the embodiment of all things considered masculine. All men, except for a handful of degenerates, of course.


But that's simply not true. All you have to do is look at this picture. Imagine taking it out of its context. Take away the war and put this photo in a less masculine (but definitely testosterone-driven) situation like, say, a football game. Anyone else would point and laugh at these two guys and probably question their sexuality.


If something like this happened during the time when men were supposedly men, then I'm pretty sure that the time most older guys mourn for probably didn't really exist, at least not outside of movies and TV.


I've never been on a battlefield, at least not while the battle was going on. (I once walked the Chickamauga site, but that was about 140 years after the Civil War.) However, I tend to trust the reports from people who actually saw action. My favorite observation comes from William Tecumseh Sherman. Everyone knows he said, "War is Hell." Not everyone knows the whole quote, which reads as follows: "I've been where you are now, and I know just how you feel. It's entirely natural that there should beat in the breast of every one of you a hope and desire that some day you can use the skill you have acquired here. Suppress it! You don't know the horrible aspects of war. I've been through two wars, and I know. I've seen cities and homes in ashes. I've seen thousands of men lying on the ground, their dead faces looking up at the skies. I tell you, war is Hell!"


Those of us who have never been in a soldier's boots will never understand. We can only come close to getting it. From everything I've read, war is a horror beyond all imagination.


Knowing this, it's suddenly easy to see a soldier breaking down. And only another soldier possesses enough understanding to comfort him.


That's what gets to me about this photograph. It's the true embodiment of the psychological effect on the survivors of war. It's not traditionally masculine to break down in the wake of incredible and shocking violence. It's certainly not traditionally masculine to comfort a man who breaks down in such a way.


But here's the thing: traditional masculinity can go fuck itself. Actual masculinity? You're looking at a picture of it right now. I don't know what happened to these two guys after this photo was taken, but I know that shortly after, they got back up and in the face of fear and misery, they continued fighting the war, knowing that it would probably lead to their own destruction.


I hope to never walk in their boots.


PS: Here's another case in point. I don't know how many of you remember Audie Murphy. My older readers will remember him as possibly the manliest man of the 20th Century, but once upon a time, he was a great movie star. He was usually in war or western pictures. However, he was also the most decorated soldier of WWII, a war that embodied the idea of a time "when men were men." Murphy was in an unusual position, though. He wrote an autobiography about his time overseas called TO HELL AND BACK (and it's a great book, which I highly recommend). They even made a movie out of it . . . starring Audie Murphy as himself. Freaky, right?


Here's the problem: Murphy suffered deeply from combat shock, what we now call PTSD. He suffered so badly from it that it was reported that when he saw the movie based on his real life experience--starring himself, no less--he broke down and couldn't watch. As a result of his time in the war, he suffered from drug addiction, which was chief among his other self-destructive tendencies. There was talk that there might be a sequel to that movie, one that would depict his time after the war as he tried to fit in as a citizen, but he was very reluctant to show how fucked up he really was. Which, by the way, is an ugly reaction to the stereotype of the manly man. This guy kept a lot of pain in because he was afraid of how the rest of the world would view him if he let it out. That is not a healthy practice. It usually leads to more self-destructive behavior, which is how it worked out in Murphy's case.


By the time he died in a plane crash, it was probably a relief to him, all things considered. Does this sound like someone who lived during a time when men were men?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #86: ON A COLD AND GRAY CHICAGO MORNING

I'm not a manly man. I tend to steer clear from the usual macho bullshit. However, I did have a pretty masculine job once upon a time. I worked for the City of Elmhurst as a parts driver. To be honest, I shouldn't have gotten that job. I didn't know shit about it. I had to carry the original part with me just so I could match it up in the parts store. I was great with directions, but I barely knew my ass from an alternator back then.


But there was something truly satisfying about that job. I got to drive around for four hours every morning (if I was lucky; if I wasn't, I was stuck being a janitor around the garage). Best of all, there was a great camaraderie at that job. If you've ever seen RESCUE ME or SIRENS or even THE JOB, you understand what I mean by that.


The job required strength and resilience from me, and I always delivered. It also required a lot of ball-busting, which I also delivered (although as the probie, I mostly had to take the ball-busting that happened at this job).


But there was a tender side to that job that I and I alone enjoyed. You see, I had a routine every morning. I'd punch in, and then I'd fill in the rag bins and the oil absorbent granules barrels. Then, I'd pump all the oil drains out to make sure the guys had fresh canisters to use throughout the day. (I would always check the pump in the back room to make sure it wasn't full. If it was, or the used oil filter bins were full, I'd call the disposal company to come out and take care of the mess.) I'd also fill up the gas tank of the parts truck and make sure there wasn't anything else that needed replenishing.


The last thing I did before checking with my boss to see if I had any parts runs was emptying the recycling bins. I'd roll out the cardboard bin to the dumpster out back, and I'd throw the big chunks in by hand. When it came down to the little things at the bottom, I'd lift that heavy fucker up and turn it upside down in the dumpster until it was empty.


It was not very romantic work, but I will say that the cardboard dumpster was out by a patch of fairly thick woods. If you cut through them, you'd eventually come out at a recreational pond with a fountain in it. But immediately, you'd see a bunch of trees (and an abandoned cabin with an odd past that once won me a college journalism award; a story for another day).  Sometimes, the patch would be inundated with fog. On some mornings, it was incredibly beautiful, which was odd, considering my masculine and blue collar job duties.


One morning, however, I was disposing of the cardboard recyclables when I saw something odd among the trees. I squinted my eyes and realized there was a deer back there. I paused, watching it watching me. Neither of us did anything. It was a magical moment, and I watched as its graceful movements brought it closer to me, step by step. It got so close to me that I wondered if it would let me pet it. I don't think I would have ever done something so audacious, but the idea that it might let me do that kind of excited me.


And then some guy drove by with an end loader, bent on getting rid of steel recyclables, and the deer sprinted off into the woods, where I would never see it again.


I love peaceful moments, and the most masculine job I've ever had gave me one, even if it was pretty fleeting. I still remember it to this very day, and I morn its quick passing.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #85: THREE-WIPE MINIMUM

Have you ever taken a shit so clean that your ass didn't need to be wiped? I'm sure you have. It happens maybe once a month. More, if you're lucky. You can usually tell as soon as the turd leaves your body. Yet . . . just to be sure, you've got to still give your butthole a swipe, right?


Nothing gives me more pleasure than to take this kind of shit. But I'm also a very clean guy. When I give myself a quick wipe after one of those kinds of shits, I carefully examine the paper. Not at eye-level, but I'm pretty sure you know where I'm coming from. Sometimes, there's a slight bit of ass juice on there, and you've got to keep wiping until that's gone, but sometimes--SOMETIMES--you come away with a dry bundle of toilet paper.


For most people, that's good enough. Not for me, though. For as long as I can remember, there isn't a single instance of me taking a shit when I didn't wipe at least three times. I mean, you could miss something with the first wipe. It's even conceivable that you could miss something with the second. The third, though? If you haven't hit Texas tea by then, you should be in good shape.


Even if I don't squeeze anything out, I'll wipe three times. You never know how wet your fart was. It's like a safety precaution. You don't want to go about your day with a kinda-sorta wiped asshole. You want to be sure you're clean, especially if you're at work. You might be OK if you work at a shit factory, but any other place? Eh . . . play it safe.


By the way, lest ye fuckers think this post wasn't classy enough for you, I would like it noted that I wrote it while listening to Dean Martin songs. That guy classed EVERYTHING up. He could make Godzilla bukkake into a song your grandparents could enjoy.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #84: I DON'T APPROVE OF THIS BULLSHIT

Before starting, I should warn you that I don't like Pat Quinn. Since America is full of them-or-us bullshit, I feel the need to say that I don't like Rauner, either. Quinn has proven himself to be inadequate for the job of governor of IL, and I don't want him running my state. Rauner is a piece of shit, and I don't want him running my state, either. Don't bother mentioning anyone else, because we all know that it will come down to a choice between these two fuckers and NO ONE ELSE. So yeah, I'm stuck with having either puke or shit run my state after this next election, and there's nothing I can do to avoid that, except move out of the state, which I can't afford right now.

Enough of that. This isn't about politics. This is about horseshit. Or bullshit, if you prefer. I'd even accept dogshit. (To be fair, if Quinn lost, it would be kind of novel to have an Illinois governor who got to leave office without going to prison first.)

This morning, I saw a Quinn reelection commercial. He spouted a bunch of stuff about how he wanted to reform the college loan laws so people could refinance it just like they could refinance a car loan or a mortgage. It's a message I agree with, but that doesn't matter. (Especially since Illinois has waaaaaaay more important problems than that.) But after talking about this for about thirty seconds, he said, "I'm Pat Quinn, and I approve of this message."

That phrase has become so ubiquitous that most people don't even notice it anymore. You all know my feelings about it. However, despite the fact that I'm enraged by this utterance, I'm even angrier at this usage than anything else.

Politicians started saying this because OTHER PEOPLE were saying things about them in an attempt to get them elected, and they decided to add this insidious phrase to those commercials to show their endorsement of those who support them. (OK, I know. The politicians themselves were responsible for these commercials in all reality, so of course they were approving of their own message. But that's all behind the scenes. They were at least pretending that it was otherwise, and I can make my peace with that. It's unethical, but at least it's not stupid.)

However, the Quinn commercial I saw today insulted me on a very basic level. YOU CAN'T USE THAT PHRASE AFTER ACTUAL FOOTAGE OF YOU GIVING THE MESSAGE. If there is a single human being on this planet who couldn't understand the message THAT YOU, PERSONALLY, JUST GAVE US, then you haven't done your job.

The only reason I can possibly fathom for this is that politics has become so untrustworthy that politicians feel the need to tell us, hey guys. We're not liars. We really mean this shit. Here's the thing, though: if you feel the need to tell us that you're not a liar, chances are extremely high that you're a liar.

Any other usage of this--ANY--suggests that you're a dumb ass. You might as well say, "We should do this, that and the other thing. My name is Dumb Motherfucking Piece of Shit, and I approve of the message that just left my stupid fucking redundant non-liar mouth."

Fuck. I need to get laid.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #83: DIGGING MYSELF DEEPER

I remember a while ago, I went to buy my first car. It was a used piece of shit, and it cost me out the ass because I didn't have any credit rating, aside from my student loan. I'd always believed credit cards are evil, and I've avoided them most of my life. And then I realized that I'm going to need to get the fuckers because in order to make it through life, I needed some kind of credit rating.


So I got a few credit cards, and things spun waaaaaay out of control. I blame my piece of shit car for the most of it, because I had to get a new set of tires for the fucking thing every ten months, not to mention everything else that went wrong with it. Maybe I spent a bit too much on books, and I know I spent a shit-ton on my girlfriend at the time, but for the most part, I think it was that car. Oh yeah, and the tooth implant I had to get back then. Jesus, that cost thousands of dollars.


Then I got a couple more credit cards, and things got worse. Holy shit, I'm bad at this. I don't think I'll ever be out from under this debt. Maybe if I finally get done paying for the super-awesome car that replaced the piece of shit I used to own, but that's not going to happen for another year.


I'm at the end of my rope, so what did I do? I got a couple more credit cards. Yeah, I know. That doesn't sound very bright. I'm pretty sure I'm well on the road to fucking myself up entirely. I wanted to see if I could get a credit limit that would allow me to do a balance transfer on one of my cards, since the interest is breaking my fucking back on that one, but no one will give me a $5,000 card.


Right now, I have these two in reserve. All too often, thanks to my recent medical and dental bills, I've found myself out of money for various things, and I fall back on the credit cards to help me stay afloat. But that's no longer getting to be an option. My plan is to retire my two biggest credit cards and put any emergency-only expenditures on my new cards. That way, I can whittle the others down a bit, and since I don't have to pay interest on my new cards for a year and a half, it might buy me enough time to put the car payments six feet under. Once that happens, I'll have a sudden gush of money into my coffers every month. Five hundred motherfucking dollars will be freed up, and I'll finally be able to kick some ass with the credit cards.


Today was payday at work. 100% of my check went to bills. The car payment, a few medical bills, my dental bill and my insurance payment. I have literally zero money left over from all of this. The next two weeks are going to be fucking awful.